


A Boon To Someone

by violentdarlings



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Corus (Tortall), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 08:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14304855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: Following the end of the Scanran War, Tobe accompanies Kel to Corus.She has a proposal for him.





	A Boon To Someone

Tobe is thirteen, or thereabouts, when his lady is released from her command at New Hope. For one thing, Fanche is more than capable of leading their people, and the end of the war removes the need for refugee camps. New Hope is reclassified as a township rather than an outpost of the Crown, and his lady is recalled to Corus.

Kel is never one to talk unnecessarily, but she is quieter than usual on the long journey south. Their party is small; Tobe and the lady knight, Neal, Sir Merric, and a squad from Third Company as escort. Not that it’s necessary, Tobe thinks, because Kel is a squad in and of herself, and the others not half bad either. But Lord Raoul had insisted, and so their party of fourteen had travelled quick and light – their possessions from the last four years will follow by wagon, as part of a larger train heading south to trade. Their time in the north, for now at least, is over.

Three days from Corus (or so Neal says; Tobe has no conception of the terrain, this far south) when they rest at night, Kel steps away from the fire. She doesn’t need to ask him to follow; they are now at the point of familiarity where Kel can communicate her intent silently and Tobe can reply in kind.

“Milady,” Tobe ventures, when they are a quarter mile from the camp. He’s not concerned, they’re both armed, and he can call the horses from far greater distance than this. “Is all well?”

Kel sighs. She has lines on her face that were not there when she found him in Queensgrace. “You have served out the period of your bond,” she says. Tobe shrugs. It’s not news to him.

“So?” His lady settles on a fallen log. Tobe hesitates; Kel flaps a hand at him.

“Sit,” she orders. Tobe perches on a large rock. Kel peers at him, her hazel eyes keen. By the light of the three-quarter moon, he can see her almost as well as day. “Have you given consideration to your future after your indenture is over?” Tobe blinks, confused.

“I serve you, milady,” he replies. “That’s – that’s my life.” Briefly, he considers a life without Kel or Hoshi or Peachblossom. It’s untenable.

“I know,” Kel says at once. “And you will always have a place with me. I only thought –” She falls silent.

“Milady?” Tobe prompts. Kel draws in a deep breath.

“Would you like to try for your shield?”

The world stops. Tobe, accustomed as he is from too many war years to anticipating every possible disaster, has no idea how to reply to this.

“Milady, I’m common,” he says eventually. “Commoners can’t become knights.” Kel nods. Her face is Yamani smooth, but her eyes are bright.

“Of course,” she agrees, her words fast, “but if I adopt you, you’ll be a Mindelan. A member of my family. You’ll have every right to try for a shield.”

Tobe had, in the occasional odd daydream, fantasised about becoming a member of Kel’s family. Idly. Wishfully, and without expectation of occurrence. He never thought it might happen. “Why now, milady?” he asks.

“During the war, it was not a possibility.” Kel replies, meeting his eyes. “I was posted to the north, and we were needed. But I anticipate seeing in the winter at court. The king has… requested it.” The tone of her voice suggests she was not best pleased to acquiesce to the king’s demand. “Pages traditionally present to court in the autumn. It’s August now. The adoption process would not take long. If you wanted…” She hesitates. “You would be a little older than the others. But Neal was five years older and he –”

“Was squire to the Lioness,” Tobe finishes. He’s heard it a thousand times by now. “Lady, you haven’t thought this through. Just because I talk good these days –” He breaks off, heated. “I talk _well_ these days,” he corrects. “That doesn’t mean I’d be any good as a knight.” Kel smiles.

“You already are the equal of a third-year page,” she retorts. “You might even find page training dull, at first, should you choose to accept.” The idea has taken hold of Tobe’s mind. To be a knight like his mistress, to protect the innocent, to have a home on his own that nobody could take away.

“I don’t know,” he says, and Kel says nothing more.

 

“She asked you, then,” Neal says, the next day. Tobe, seated astride Hoshi, cocks his head to listen to a voice only he and the horses can hear.

“Magewhisper says you should mind your own business,” he replies, nodding to Neal’s warhorse. Hoshi whickers in amusement.

“I never know whether to believe you,” Neal says, his eyes slitted against the late summer sun. “She did, then? Ask you.”

“Whether I want to be a part of her family? Aye.” He doesn’t often lapse into his old northern cant, but it’s freeing, sometimes. Like remembering a part of himself he doesn’t want to lose.

“You have other options, you know,” Neal points out. “Than becoming a knight. You could become one of the best breeders of horses on the continent, with your magic. Or join the Own, or the Riders.”

“I’d rather stay with milady,” Tobe mutters. Neal shakes his head.

“A man needs a life of his own,” he replies, his eyes going soft. Tobe knows he is thinking of Lady Yukimi, his wife. They have spent most of the past three years apart. “As a Mindelan you would have more freedom,” Neal continues. Tobe scowls.

“Don’t milady’s mam and da care that their daughter wants to adopt a commoner? And half-Scanran, to boot.” Neal shrugs.

“Kel’s parents allowed her to become the first openly female page in three hundred years,” he replies. “They’re open-minded. Kel’s father was only ennobled very recently, as noble genealogies go.” Tobe winces. He does _know_ that.

_First time he’s talking sense and you won’t listen?_ Hoshi demands. _For shame, boy._ Tobe grins despite himself. Hoshi always sounds like a weary aunt, bewildered at her charges’ foolishness.

_He cares about you,_ Magewhisper puts in, her light, bright voice clear. _He only wants what’s best for you, People-boy._

_Don’t make me talk to Peachblossom about this,_ Hoshi adds. Tobe shakes his head.

“You both need colts,” he says aloud in exasperation. “Four-legged babes to take your minds off scolding two-leggers.” Neal, well used to Tobe’s habit of carrying on multiple conversations with multiple species at once, just smirks to himself. “I’ll think about it,” Tobe mutters, and both the horses and the knight riding beside him seem content to badger him no longer

Corus is vast, easily fifty times the size of the town of Queensgrace where Tobe was born, and filled with more people than Tobe has seen in his life. Of every colour, and every country; Tobe is of the north, where many folk have Scanran blood evident in their blue eyes and blonde hair. Corus is a melting pot of every country all the way to the Roof of the World, and Tobe wants to know them all.

They take a back road into the palace. “I hardly think Jonathan will be waiting on the front gates,” Neal snips to Kel.

“We’re not in the north anymore, with several hundred miles between us and the capital,” Kel says extremely quietly through clenched teeth. “Didn’t the Whisper Man teach you to not to sass a king in his own city? Or, you might think, at all?” Neal waves a hand carelessly.

“I’m pretty sure King Jonathan bounced me on his knee when I was two,” he replies blithely. “Father likes to tell that story when he’s been in the mulled wine.” Tobe sees Kel scowl.

“An answer for everything,” she snips. Peachblossom calls Neal an ass. Tobe smirks. “There’s no harm in coming to the palace a little more subtly than striding up the front steps.”

_There are spies everything in Corus,_ Kel had said the night before. _And listening spells where spies cannot go. I don’t need to tell you to be careful, Tobe, because I have no doubts about your discretion, but still._

Tobe doesn’t care so much about the court. He’s heard there’s a ostler in the stables who has horse magic, as well as a woman who acquires and trains ponies for the Riders. He’s met Daine, of course, whose wild magic stretches to everything with feathers, scales, and fur, but other horse mages, that would be something.

_And a shield,_ a voice whispers in the back of his head. _Sir Tobeis Boon_ – he snorts despite himself. He’s quite certain there’s never been a Sir Boon before. _Except you’d be Sir Tobeis of Mindelan._

He dismounts when they stop in a small outdoor courtyard, takes Peachblossom’s reins into his hands along with Hoshi’s. Just because this is the biggest building he’s ever been in doesn’t mean he’s like to forget his responsibilities.

“Damn,” Kel mutters. Tobe cranes his neck to see a cluster of people standing in the shadow of the overhang of the roof. In the same moment Neal recognises Lady Yukimi – Kel drags him back as the healer starts to go to his wife. Tobe eyes her, confused.

“Neal,” Kel hisses, and Neal seems to return to himself. Both his mistress and the knight-mage sink into deep bows. Tobe does the same without quite knowing who he’s bowing to. If nobility like his mistress has to bow, he probably has to do so doubly, as low as he is. He risks a glance up; in the centre of the group stand a beautiful woman and a man who looks vaguely familiar.

Oh. Tobe’s seen him on coins. That must be the king.

“Lady knight, Sir Nealan,” the man says, the lines around his eyes deepening for a moment. “Welcome back to the palace.”

“Sire,” Kel murmurs, rising. She has her Yamani face on.

“Don’t let me keep you from your loved ones,” the king says. Neal needs no further encouragement, racing to his wife’s side. Tobe averts his eyes, only to see Kel embrace an older man shorter than herself and a very tall woman with white hair. The man has his mistress’s eyes.

“Tobe,” Kel beckons, and warily Tobe comes forward, trying to keep as much distance between himself and the monarchs as possible. They don’t look cruel, but one never knows with nobility. They’re as changeable as cats.

“Mother, Father, this is Tobeis Boon, my ward,” Kel says clearly. “Tobe, may I present my parents, Baron Piers of Mindelan and his lady, Ilane.”

Tobe bows. When he stands straight again, the lady is looking at him with bright, joyful eyes. “My daughter has written of you,” she says warmly. “It is a pleasure to meet a young man that my daughter holds in such high esteem.”

Tobe blushes to the roots of his blonde hair. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, your ladyship,” he says, his voice squeaking in the middle in that annoying way it has tended to lately. “Your lordship – I mean, my lord baron.” He really has no idea how to address Kel’s father. Luckily, the man doesn’t seem to stand on ceremony. Belatedly, Tobe remembers that the king and queen are still there. If someone had told him four years he’d be in the presence of the king of Tortall, he would have laughed until he cried.

“In due course I will send for you both, Sir Nealan, Lady Knight Keladry,” the king says. “It has been too long, and I am anxious to be apprised of affairs in the north.”

They are gone in a whisper of expensive fabric and another round of bows and curtseys. Kel’s tight expression of stillness eases once they are gone. Tobe is not sure why his lady dislikes the king, but there it is nevertheless.

Tobe is still clutching the reins of the unusually patient Peachblossom and the ever-calm Hoshi. “I can show you where the stables are,” Kel says, but Tobe shakes his head.

“Peachblossom and Hoshi will show me the way,” he replies. “We’ll be well enough, my lady.” Kel smiles. She looks like years have melted off her face.

“Find me later, then,” she instructs. Tobe hesitates a moment, the future yawning open before him.

“Very good, milady. And –” He breathes in deep, relishing these last few moments before the world changes. “I accept your offer.”

_Sensible,_ Hoshi says approvingly as he follows her to the stables. He hadn’t dared look back at his lady, to see if she was pleased. He needs time with the horses, in the hay-sweet and dung-sharp world of the stables, where he knows his place and what he is meant to do. There won’t be much of that in the future. And yet, to protect the small, as his mistress has taught him to do.

Surely that is worth a peck of change, and a new name.


End file.
